Thursday, March 13, 2014

I am a Tetris addict

Hello, my name is Ken and I’m a Tetris addict. I’ve tried to stop. Or at least take a break for meals, but the game has me too far in its clutches. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent rotating the shapes as they fall so they align in a straight horizontal line and reward me with points.

To me, Tetris is the Soviet Union’s revenge for our winning the Cuban Missile Crisis and not allowing them to nuke us from 90 miles away. Damn you, Russkies!

And now, I sit helpless at my computer, wasting valuable time I could be trying to dream up a storyline for the Lincoln Logs movie that is sure to be made. Time I could spend talking to my children or plugging my books (MUST KILL TV, still ridiculously low priced).

And it’s not just playing the game anymore. Oh no. It’s advancing to higher and higher levels, it’s trying to get the maximum number of points. It’s playing one game so long that my bladder bursts.

Oh, I’ve tried other games. I play Free Cell, but it’s… it’s not the same. Endorphins are not released when you win at Free Cell. Your hands don’t shake and you don’t risk a full grand mal seizure after a half hour of Free Cell. Free Cell is for pussies!

Newer games like Angry Birds have a “cute” factor that us hard core computer game players find distasteful. So you kill adorable birds? Who gives a fuck? But reaching level 71 without suffering a stroke, that my friend is an achievement. I see these people winning Olympic Gold Medals and think, anyone can ski. Try racking up points when you don’t get a skinny piece for five minutes, bitches.

There are no Help Lines, and what good what they do anyway? I’d talk on speaker phone and have my hands free for Tetris.

I need an intervention. I’m very close to getting a hand-held device for when I’m away from the computer. Thank God the GPS screen on my dashboard doesn’t have an app for this. I’m starting to dream Tetris. Erotic dreams where Sports Illustrated swimsuit models are naked and I’m beating them all in head-to-head competition. I can’t eat English Toffee without rearranging the candy pieces in the bag. I’m thinking of making the Tetris theme my ringtone.

I know that admitting I’m an addict is the first step. And with your support, hopefully I can get on the 12 Level Plan and break this vicious cycle. I’m bad and getting worse. It’s to the point that when I get the sudden urge to play, no matter what else I’m doing on the computer, I just have to stop and

What do you think of the news that Big Bang Theory was renewed for 3 years? Personally I think it means that the show is going to be painfully bad by the time it limps off screen, but maybe I'm wrong. I just think there are only a handful of shows that really maintain high quality after about 6 years, even shows that still kind of went out on a high note I think could have ended two years earlier than they did. (ex. Friends, How I Met Your Mother)

Been there with Tetris but as most of my periodic addictions and obsessions go, one day, it just went away.I will boast a bit here though- I was the first one in my household to capture the princess in Nintendo Mario Brothers. No small feat for the mother of five children I'll tell you.

I can feel for you, Ken. My first year at college was 1980-81, when video games hit big (Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man), and I spent far more time in the arcades than at the library. As a result, my cumulative GPA was a 3.2 (1.66 the first semester, 1.54 the second). Fortunately, I joined the fraternity the furthest off campus, and managed to graduate on time.

I've gotten better at recognizing which games are addictive to me (Tetris, Bejeweled Blitz, Angry Birds, Flappy Wings) and which are not (Farkle) - and I keep them only on my iPhone. If it's addictive, I delete it. (Well, except Bejeweled Blitz.)

Play the game to the point where it becomes unwinnable (probably after Level 30).

Even if you play with computer reflexes, there comes a point where the blocks' vertical speed surpasses their horizontal speed. Therefore, even a computer is unable to shift the blocks' lateral positions fast enough to hit their marks.

After this, you'll be so sick of Tetris, you'll never want to touch it again.

I have a theory about Tetris. I think that it busies up only a very specific part of the brain having to do with spacial relations, and leaves the rest of the brain free for other things. I have had some of my best ideas while playing Tetris. I think it has the same effect as TM for some people. I have no facts, stats, or research to back this up, it's just a theory.

Carol: I think HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER could have usefully ended at season 4. The quality began to plummet in season 5.

Friday question: a little different from Carol's but along the same lines. If you're in season 7 of a show, do you welcome or groan at a three-year pickup? Is it an opportunity to frame larger stories or a mountain of work when you're already beginning to run out of ideas? (I imagine it's a nice problem to have, like not having enough garage space for your yacht, but still - you have to go on and do the work.)

This post reminds me of a Woody Allen short story about a person who somehow can become a character in the books he is reading and at the very end he rather unfortunately ends up as the Spanish verb "to be." I guess both essays are entirely built up for the joy of reading the last sentence while not knowing it. I enjoyed both.

Speaking of videogames, Ken, have you ever played any others? I was playing through an old adventure game recently (The Curse of Monkey Island), and I was reminded how genuinely funny the dialogue was. (The game series was actually the original inspiration for the Pirates of the Caribbean movie -- but it ended up being "based" on the ride instead.)

When there's games out there that shine through great characters and witty dialogue, it seems they would be enjoyable and rewarding timewasters for fans of good comedic writing.

Ever played any of the "classic" adventure games? (The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, etc?) Or are all those just a bunch of really bizarre titles to you? :)

For readers who remember the above games fondly, you might be interested to know that one of the writers of the above games recently resurrected the genre and created the sublime Broken Age.

Only computer game I ever got addicted to was that one from several years ago in which the object was to pie Bill Gates in the face. I had nothing against Bill Gates, but loved getting better and better at it. I got so fast my mouse couldn't respond quickly enough.

I don't know if this is a good Friday question, because I suspect you'll write something about it anyway, but how about this new version of THE ODD COUPLE for CBS with Matthew Perry as Oscar and Thomas Lennon as Felix? Perry's co-writing the pilot with FRASIER's Joe Keenan. Is there life left in this premise? Will it just be the same old thing, only with more sex jokes?

Alec--many are not aware of this, but Tetris did actually appear in local arcades as well. Hence the need for quarters.

For me it was Spider Solitaire. I still have to be careful to watch the clock if I start a game, otherwise I'll get sucked in. And it's such a frustrating, disappointing game! At the "hard" setting" (4 suites) I can't even break a 10% success rate, so I'm basically playing with the full knowledge I'm going to lose most of my games.

RG: In "The Kugelmass Episode" Kugelmass doesn't become anything; he's thrown into a Spanish textbook in which... oh, what the hell, let me just transcribe the wonderfully vivid final sentence:

"He had been projected into an old textbook, Remedial Spanish, and was running for his life over a barren, rocky terrain as the word tener ('to have') - a large and hairy irregular verb - raced after him on its spindly legs."

I actually saw Alexey Pajitnov once, the inventor of Tetris. I had a temp job at Microsoft Studios, moving their tapes in my own car to the archives in another building. In that building it looked like Microsoft was developing a games division, even though the Xbox hadn't come out yet. One time when moving the cart between my car and the elevator in the underground garage, I stopped a car driven by a bearded person who looked a lot like the pictures I've seen of Mr. Pajitnov. The car had a Washington State license plate bearing a variant of "TETRIS." Even Alexey Pajitnov couldn't get TETRIS itself. Just a few years before I had programmed my own version of Tetris in BASIC for the Apple II, just to see if it could be done.

Personally I like Columns better. It's like Tetris, except just when the stack seems full, you might cause a chain reaction that clears most of it away.

About KEN LEVINE

Named one of the BEST 25 BLOGS by TIME Magazine. Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer. In a career that has spanned over 30 years Ken has worked on MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS, WINGS, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, BECKER, DHARMA & GREG, and has co-created three series. He and his partner wrote the feature VOLUNTEERS. Ken has also been the radio/TV play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres. and Dodger Talk. He hosts the podcast HOLLYWOOD & LEVINE

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